Comparing Asian Nationalities | Asian American Poll

COMPARING ASIAN NATIONALITIES
(Updated Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:20:25 PM to reflect the 100 most recent valid responses.)

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WHAT YOU SAY

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big deal. get over it. what gives china a right to call 'america' 'mei-guo'?
penelope Wednesday, April 03, 2002 at 02:18:25 (PST)

T.H Lien,
Serani means "Nazarens". It is used for the Portuguese-Eurasian community in Malacca, Malaysia.They are the descendants of the Portuguese people and are of mixed race ( Portuguese+ Malay and maybe Dutch British and some other races).When the Portuguese first landed in Malacca in 1511, the locals called them " Bennali putih", which means "white Bengalis".The Malays thought they were from Bengal, India.But later, they called the Portuguese "Nasrani', which means "Nazarens" from Nazareth because of their belief ( Christianity).That's how the word "Serani" is being used till today. But of course, the Portuguese-Eurasian community in Malacca today prefer to be called "Kristang", which means Christians and the offensive nickname to use is "Grago", because Grago is a king of shrimp, a reference to the trditional fishermen.
Malaysian-Eurasian-gal18 Wednesday, April 03, 2002 at 02:10:02 (PST)

Asian & Latino = LatAsian or Latin Hapa. Yeah, they're out there too...

You missed one Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 22:35:42 (PST)

To Thomas,

You're not entirely correct in what you said about the pronunciation of "Asia". The word Asia comes from the Latin language and before that from Indo-European, an ancient dead language. At first, it was a term for "Asia Minor", also known as Anatolia, which is now the country of Turkey. Later, the term was expanded to include the entire continent of Asia.

In Latin, the word was pronounced, "AH-see-ya", just like the pronunciation you favor. Likewise, in Italian and Spanish (which are derived from Latin), it's also pronounced "AH-see-ya".

The English language tends to take the long "A" sound and turn it into an English "long A", which really sounds like the "E" sound in most other languages, with a so-called "y-glide" at the end, something like like "Eeeehy".

If the English word "Asia" were directly derived from an Asian language like Chinese, then it would certainly be "reclaiming" the word to pronounce it more like it's pronounced in Chinese -- just like the word "BEIJING" comes a lot closer to the actual Chinese pronunciation than does the formerly used "PEKING" (and many other examples, like "BOMBAY" and "MUMBAI" in India.)

But, ironically, it's more likely that the Chinese word for Asia, AH-zhou was derived from a Western language, like English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese, rather than being a word native to the Chinese language!

The notion of dividing the world into "continents" is actually an idea created by Western mapmakers. If you look at a map of the world, really there is no discrete geographical border between Europe and Asia. It's all just one big land-mass with various regions. Europe is but a huge "penninsula" jutting off the western end of the Eurasian landmass. Chinese may not have had a word for Asia, originally, because throughout Chinese history geographers didn't think of the world in terms of continents, but just "The Middle Kingdom" and the other regions which surrounded it.

I hope this makes sense!
DC Dude Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 20:55:51 (PST)

Thomas,

In Mandarin, Asia is referred to as "Ya Zhou."
Asia Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 20:31:18 (PST)

T.H. Lien,

I defer to AC Dropout on what words Taiwanese people use to say "gas." I have also heard that the usage of Japanese on Taiwan is kind of "frozen in time" and that Taiwanese people may use words that have dropped out of the modern Japanese lexicon.

Thomas,

I think that the Chinese pronunciation of "Asia" is actually a transliteration of the Western word "Asia" and not the other way around. If anything, we Chinese are actually mispronouncing the Western word of "Asia" (or maybe it just reflects the Dutch, or Portuguese or Spanish pronunciation).

The concept of an Asia stretching from Russia to Japan with Turkey, India and China in between is itself more a Western concept than a Chinese one. Dong-fang is probably more natural, although it certainly lacks the breadth of the term Asia. The idea of Asia in the East is fairly recent (historically speaking) I believe.

Regards,
Oyster Pancake Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 15:28:11 (PST)

Asian Fever. Why don't you move to Korea? I hear the local hagwons have lots of openings for drug monkeys. Don't get me wrong. Drug monkey sounds like an insult, but it is a legimate job title. Several of my white friends went to Korea and became drug monkeys.

BudtheChud Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 12:50:47 (PST)

Asian Fever from Florence,

Why don't you learn to speak Korean. I'm sure you'll be able to learn to speak it in a decade.

You better start cracking open those books now buddy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5deadlyvenoms Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 11:53:49 (PST)

Thomas
Aaaah what's the big deal? Ahsha sounds ridiculous. Are you trying to change the english language? Should we go further and pronounce Coca-cola as kerka-kerla or coffee as kafei? Why try to sound like a FOB?
bah humbug Tuesday, April 02, 2002 at 09:34:25 (PST)

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